Mayor Bloomburg in New York City wants to tell you what you may or may not drink. He can’t (legally) just pass an edict, so he wants to use the power of the purse to control as many people as he can; so he’s trying to set it up so that you cannot use food stamps to buy sugary drinks. Because he thinks it is good for you.

This is the advance of statism. Statism is, simply put, the idea that government gets to rule every aspect of your life. In the United States, we don’t have kings, so the statists frequently try to implement their goals by the power of the purse. For instance the SCHIP bill Obama signed into law in the first days of his administration, which singles out smokers for heavily increased taxation. They are doing two things – funding their bill, and discouraging smoking.

Now, I don’t smoke, and I don’t like smoking; but I doggone sure don’t think the government should be making that decision for me.

There are taxes on gasoline designed to discourage profligate use of that resource. If the liberal / progressive left-wing ever succeeds in passing Cap & Trade (either by congressional action or by EPA edicts), that will be the most egregious example of social engineering by taxation ever seen; they want us to burn less fuel and use less electricity. Not because it isn’t available, but because they have decided that they know better than we do what is good for us – in the name of global warming, which has now been discredited or at least called into question.

There are many, many examples; shucks, there are many, many examples in ObamaCare, alone. Obama is a statist, as are most Democrats. They want bigger government, and more control. And more and more of our money, since they produce nothing, themselves.

It’s all about control. Because, in their arrogance, they think they should have control, and the more control they have, the happier they will be.

Personally, I detest micromanagement from any source.

This administration has done more to advance statism than any preceding administration. I personally want it to go the other way. I want the most personal freedom that I can acquire. And this includes freedom from taxation that is intended to alter my behavior – I can decide what is good for me, thank you very much.

This is one reason I am in favor of the Fair Tax, or something similar; because it removes the ability of the government to use taxation to control behavior. As long as we simultaneously repeal all other taxes and replace it with the fair tax. At least, that is my understanding at this point.